1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a liquid discharging apparatus that discharges liquid droplets onto a work, to a method of cleaning a head, to an electro-optical device, to a method of manufacturing an electro-optical device, and to an electronic apparatus.
2. Related Art
Liquid discharging apparatuses may be used as drawing systems that discharge liquid droplets onto a work in an ink-jet method. The drawing system may be used for manufacturing, for example, an electro-optical device, such as a flat panel display.
In general, the liquid discharging apparatus that discharges the liquid droplets in the ink-jet method has a head for discharging the liquid droplets. A nozzle surface of the head needs to be cleaned, if necessary. Therefore, a method of cleaning a head has been suggested (for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2003-270426 (page 10 and FIG. 18)).
In this type of head cleaning apparatus, bubbles, dust, or solidified ink in nozzle openings of the head are ejected to the outside, and then a wiping sheet is pressed against the nozzle surface to clean the nozzle surface.
However, meniscuses (ink interfaces) of ink are positioned at the corresponding nozzle openings in the nozzle surface of the head, and the meniscuses are positioned close to the nozzle surface. Therefore, when the wiping sheet is pressed against the nozzle surface to remove the residual ink from the nozzle surface as in the related art, the meniscuses of ink in the respective nozzle openings are damaged, and thus the ink droplets in the nozzle openings are drawn out from the nozzle surface.
In this case, even though cleaning is performed on the nozzle surface, the ink droplets drawn out from the nozzle openings adhere to the nozzle surface. The ink droplets adhering to the nozzle surface do not necessarily have a bad influence on the discharge of the liquid droplets in the ink-jet method. However, when the ink droplets remaining on the nozzle surface adhere around the nozzle openings, a subsequent ink-discharging operation performed in the ink-jet method causes a flying curve phenomenon of the ink droplets.
Further, when the ink droplets adhere to the nozzle surface for a long time, a nozzle plate constituting the nozzle surface may be corroded away.